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A Bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom Bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a Bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures? -- Cicero

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The Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #O: "The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not."

Rule #1: "Document everything you do; if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."

Rule #2 [The Sixty Minutes Rule]:"Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew."

Rule #3: "Nothing Simple is Ever Easy"

Rule #4: "It's about the money; follow the money."

Rule #5: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Rule #6: "Politics is the enemy of good government."

Rule #7: "The biggest detriment to public service is the public."

Rule #8: "The second biggest detriment to public service is the service."

Rule #9: "There's a reason; there's ALWAYS a reason."

Rule #10: "The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good."

Rule #11: "Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you're a dickhead."

Rule #12: "No one really knows what you do."

Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]:"No one ever acts like the bastard they really are."

Rule #14: "Bureaucracy endures."

Rule #15: "The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction."

Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Pittsburgh Region lost its collective Shit yesterday because of an earlier than normal snowfall.

"We are all going to die!" shouted one relatively calm woman who broke into KDKA-TV's downtown studios for the sole purpose of attacking meterologist Dennis Bowman. Others, who were not as calm, resorted to self-immolation or canabalism as almost an eighth of an inch of snow blanketed the ground.

Eyewitnesess at the Camp Horne Road Giant Eagle report several fights over the remaining cans of French Cut Beans, carts filled with milk, eggs, and toilet paper, and at least one knife fight over the free samples of shrimp cocktail.

"I need fried onions," said one customer in an interview. "We might be stuck until Spring and I may want to make casserole at some point."

Former Anthropogenic Climate Change skeptics attacked and slaughtered visiting representatives from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (a Global Climate Change Denying organization) in an apparent sacrifice to appease, what they termed, an angry, angry God. Chants of "How's that Global Warming for ya?" echoed throughout Downtown as the Body of CEI Director Myron Ebell was ritualistically burned.

Reports have also come in from across the region of literally thousands of motorists that have apparently forgotten how to drive their cars.

Pittsburgh occasionally loses its collective shit during major winter storms, but this marks the first time since 1993 when the city has lost its shit during the month of October.

The National Weather Service predicts that the Region should lose its shit at least twice more this season, depending on when salt supplies run out.

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